1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to musical tone synthesizing apparatuses and methods that produce multiple sets of performance data each having a specific tone color being arbitrarily set, and particularly to musical tone synthesizing apparatuses and methods in which a variety of tone colors can be additionally set as extended tone colors and which are capable of managing extended sound sources.
This application is based on Patent Application No. Hei 11-179482 filed in Japan, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, engineers and manufacturers develop and produce a variety of musical tone synthesizing apparatuses such as electronic musical instruments in a variety of models. Herein, each model of the musical tone synthesizing apparatus is capable of setting various tone colors, a number of which is determined in advance. To further increase the number of the tone colors being set, the conventional apparatuses are connected with other instruments and devices (e.g., other electronic musical instruments and other sound sources), which are capable of handling other tone colors being added, by way of prescribed interfaces of MIDI (where "MIDI" is an abbreviation for the known standard of "Musical Instrument Digital Interface"). Herein, increasing the number of the tone colors is actualized by controlling the instruments and devices in accordance with MIDI protocols. Concretely speaking, tone colors are being changed over in such a way that MIDI program change instructions for instructing changes of tone colors are transmitted to multiple electronic musical instruments or sound sources. Actually, however, users (e.g., human operators and performers) intend to actualize tone generation using the tone color being selected by a certain electronic musical instrument or sound source. For this reason, it is necessary to perform prescribed setting in advance that other electronic musical instruments or other sound sources do not actually produce sounds even when they receive the MIDI program change instructions. However, it is very troublesome for the user to perform the aforementioned setting with respect to each instrument or device every time the MIDI program change instruction is being issued.
To cope with the aforementioned drawbacks, engineers recently develop electronic musical instruments whose main bodies are equipped with extended slots for installing extended boards used for adding tone colors in advance. That is, the extended slots are capable of storing the extended boards such as sound boards that have same structures of the pre-installed tone generators. Or, the extended slots are capable of storing sound boards that store and handle extended tone colors. Herein, the tone colors are extended in such a way that the boards are directly interconnected with main controls of the electronic musical instruments by way of main buses without intervention of MIDI interfaces. In addition, the users are capable of handling the "extended" tone colors as similar to "preset (or main)" tone colors by using manual operators (e.g., switches and controls) on operation panels of main bodies of the electronic musical instruments. Thus, it is possible to add the desired tone color(s) to the electronic musical instrument without performing "troublesome" setting works, which are described above.
The extended tone colors, which are being extended using the sound boards installed in the extended slots, are used as "alternative" tone colors or "additional" tone colors in comparison with "preset" tone colors which are preset to a main tone generator of the electronic musical instrument. That is, each of the extended tone colors has two functions, i.e., an alternative function and an addition function. For example, the alternative function is described as follows:
Suppose that a prescribed tone color of a piano being preset in the main body is normally designated by a tone color number "1". In that case, if the sound board is installed in the extended slot of the main body of the electronic musical instrument, the tone color number "1" is somewhat changed to designate a high-quality tone color of the piano (or version-up tone color data of the piano) stored on the sound board.
In addition, the addition function controls the electronic musical instrument to construct an tone-color addition system in which the additional tone color is newly added to consecutively follow the preset tone colors and is given a new tone color number serially following the tone color numbers already used in the main body.
The aforementioned technique (i.e., addition of tone colors by installation of the sound board in the extended slot) merely provides extension of tone colors, so it lacks concrete tone-generation instructors for instructing generation of musical tones using the extended tone colors. In other words, the aforementioned technique merely broadens a range for selection of tone colors, however, it fails to effectively use the extended tone colors. That is, the main body of the existing electronic musical instrument is designed to set a certain number of parts for the tone-generation instructors in advance, wherein the tone colors are allocated to the parts respectively, for example. So, if the electronic musical instrument itself is regarded as an orchestra (or band), the aforementioned technique for the addition of tone colors using the board installed in the extended slot is construed as an increase of a number of instruments (or tone colors) being usable in the orchestra (or electronic musical instrument). In other words, it does not contribute to addition of parts, i.e., addition of performers, players or members playing the instruments in the orchestra. To play the music with the extended tone color, it is necessary to use the part, which is originally used for generation of musical tones using the preset tone color, for generation of musical tones using the extended tone color. In short, the electronic musical instrument employing the aforementioned technique is insufficient to demonstrate depths and effects of the music being played with instruments.